I headed down Broadway, once again walking into the financial district. I turned west and went past the World Trade Center site. The Deutsche Bank building, still uninhabitable years after the attack, was shrouded in black pinstripes, making the real estate look more like the people who had once worked inside.

Over thousands of previous flips, my hand-eye coordination had been sufficient to catch a spinning quarter after I threw it in the air (outside of an unfortunate incident with a gust of wind). But this time, I missed. I figured I’d just see how the coin landed on the ground and turn that way. But the quarter had lodged itself in a small snowdrift: it was standing vertically, on its edge.

I flipped again, turned north up to Fulton Street, and then zig-zagged southeast, before turning northeast and ending up at the South Street Seaport, home of blustery winter winds. There seemed to be wooden pallets everywhere: was something being built, or was something being taken away?